Wild With Younger Hearts
by Mind of the Childishly Naive
Summary: Nami doesn't even turn at the first cry of, "Hey! Thief!" that breaks over the crowd like a thunderclap. / A Modern AU for Arlong Park


-x-

wild with younger hearts  
_in for a penny_

-x-

Nami doesn't even turn at the first cry of, _"Hey! Thief!"_ that breaks over the crowd like a thunderclap.

The air is cool after a late August rain, steam wafting up from the sun-warmed street and curling her short hair. She lifts a hand to tuck it behind her ear because it's distracting, eyes scanning the sea of people as she hitches her canvas bag more securely onto her shoulder and continues walking at a steady pace, her short heels clacking on the pavement. The second shout is closer than she expects, and far too specific - it gives her away entirely - "Someone stop that girl with the orange hair! She stole my watch! And my wallet!"

A woman walking toward Nami looks right at her, shocked, clutching her purse; another man to the side of her stops in his tracks.

Grinning, Nami breaks into a run.

_"Hey!"_

She slips through the crowd smooth as silk, navigating easily between the people, around the vendors taking up the sidewalk - no one tries to stop her, and the man's frustrated cries fade away entirely when she cuts the corner at the far end of the block and disappears down the steps to the subway station. Here, the running isn't nearly so conspicuous. It only looks as if she's late for her train, which - she lifts the man's fine gold watch from the pocket of her jacket - she is.

The 7:45 leaves in less than five minutes.

Nami mutters a swear, skipping steps on the way down. She's in too much of a hurry, though, and these damn heels - three steps from the bottom, she misses one. Her foot goes out into open air and Nami plummets forward, a sharp gasp pulling into her lungs, hands batting for the rail, another person, _something_.

She expects to hit the concrete, hard.

What she hits, instead, is a solid chest.

Someone catches her, two hands grabbing her at the arms to hold her upright - he even manages to catch her bag, where it slips from her shoulder, and Nami is stunned for a moment, her face pressed into a stranger's chest. Her fingers twist into the sleeves of his jacket, bright red and worn soft, thinning out at the elbows. Whoever it is laughs, "Hey, that was close!" and when she looks up she sees a wide grin - a straw hat, of all things, sitting on the teen's head. He can't be any older than she is.

Nami fumbles to get her feet underneath her, taking that last step down the stairs once she does. She's still hanging onto the teen's elbows and quickly bats his hands away (more insistently that she probably has to, he lets her go as soon as she's yanks her hands back).

"Yeah," she says, a bit breathless from the surprise, "Thanks - "

_"There you are you little bitch!"_

Nami starts, twisting to look at the top of the stairs, over the heads of the people hurrying around them to make their train - that persistent asshole has found her, and Nami has a choice to make. She grabs her savior by the arm with both hands, practically wraps herself around him. The teen tugs on his arm, confused (_"Hey, what're you doin'?"_), and Nami says, loud enough that the man coming after her will hear, in the most placating voice she can muster, "I did exactly what you asked, Boss! Here's everything I got this morning."

She makes a show of handing him the watch and the wallet and then she bolts, pushing the poor boy toward the foot of the stairs, slipping her hands deftly into his pockets before she breaks away entirely. It's pointless - they're as empty as the wallet she's left with him, but she has more than enough money to compensate for giving up the watch. The man's voice, booming in outrage, is lost under the noise of the crowd, amplified by the vast, swooping ceilings and archways of the subway station. Nami feels a little bad for throwing that poor boy under the bus like that - he did save her, after all - but she jumps the turnstalls while the security guy is preoccupied without once looking back.

-x-

The train isn't as full as it usually is.

With all the commuters trying to make it to school and work on time, it's usually fit to burst, but as Nami hops onto the car behind an elderly woman, she sees that there's a row of open seats directly across from the door. Nami takes the one in the middle, after scanning the small crowd. She unzips her jacket, warm from all the running and trying to catch her breath, combing a hand back through her hair. Her ankle hurts; she realizes she twisted it when she fell and crosses her legs to lift it, rubbing it absently. The doors open a few more times, letting late-comers on, and Nami occupies her time with inconspicuously sifting the cash out of the wallets crowding up her jacket pockets.

She'll discard them later, once she gets off the train.

Sighing, Nami leans forward, propping her elbow on her raised knee, resting her chin in her hand as she curls over around her bag, sliding the thick wad of cash into the inside pocket. She regrets having to get rid of that expensive watch - Buggy would have given her a grand for it, at the very least, but it can't be helped, now.

Collateral damage and all that -

But as luck would have it, her collateral damage waltzes onto the train the next (and last) time the doors open - the teen in the red jacket, pushing that straw hat back on his head and looking puzzled and lost. There's not a scratch on him. Nami sits upright, and she must make a noise in her surprise, because he looks right at her across the crowded car.

"Hey, it's you!" he says loudly, getting looks from several people. He makes a beeline for Nami with little regard for anyone in his path and Nami balks and raises her hands, at first, shaking her head, but - he's grinning. "Here! Why'd you gimme this, anyway?"

It's the watch, sitting in his palm when he holds it out to her.

Nami stares at it, her mouth open.

The teen continues, laughing, "You didn't have to pay me back or anything. I just happened to be standing there."

"What - " She stops, squeezing the edge of her seat as the train finally gives a shudder and lurches forward. Once the movement steadies, Nami darts her hand out to retrieve the watch, pocketing it before anyone else can get a good look at it, frowning at the other teen standing over her. It's expensive, there are shady people on this car, and he's just waving it around like an idiot. She keeps her voice quiet when she asks, "What happened to that guy?"

He looks puzzled, inclining his head, "What guy?"

"The guy - " She grits her teeth, hisses, "The one who was chasing me!"

"Oh," the teen says, "That guy. I beat him up."

_"You what?!"_

The outburst draws curious looks and Nami clamps her hand over her mouth. The teen doesn't seem to care. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, and Nami sees, a second before he does it, the bloody knuckles of his right hand. He shrugs his narrow shoulders up, the string hanging from his straw-hat bumping against his collarbone. He laughs, like it's nothing at all, "Yeah. He started yellin' and it was really annoying, so I punched 'im in the face." That easy grin is back. "I'm Luffy."

Nami is speechless.

-x-

Nami realizes fairly quickly that Luffy is an idiot. It takes probably five minutes.

He flops down in the empty seat beside her without any invitation and Nami doesn't mind so much. Not only did he save her from breaking her neck, he returned the watch she stole (albeit unwittingly). In hindsight that should have been her first sign, but there is just something about that stupid grin of his, too - it makes her feel at ease somehow. She certainly isn't used to that. It has her interest piqued. But when she shifts around in the seat so she's facing him, knees bumping against his thigh, and asks where he's going, Luffy blinks at her like it should be obvious and says, "School. Same as you, right?" which is technically right.

It's Wednesday. She _should _be going to school.

"Um, wrong," Nami says, somewhat skeptically, "This train is going down town, stupid, didn't you read the sign before you got on?"

Luffy laughs, raising his shoulders again in a tiny shrug, "No. The signs are really confusing." There's her second sign. She wonders if he's illiterate, or just stupid. "I usually just get on the train that's about to leave when I get here. But I guess that didn't work out so much today."

Probably both, Nami thinks.

And there goes her interest, right out the window.

"Wow," she says, smiling, but he doesn't seem to understand that it's sarcasm.

"Yeah. So I guess we're both skipping~"

_What an idiot_, she thinks, shifting around and leaning back in her seat. She spends twenty minutes sitting beside this bewildering boy, who's bouncing his knee to the swaying motion of the train as it hurries along, not bothered in the least by their truancy. He whistles to himself, eyes wandering around the train. When she knows her stop is coming up, Nami stands without saying anything to him, shouldering her bag and easing her way to the door around everyone else, so she won't get trapped on the car when people start flooding in and out. Her ankle protests, throbbing in pain at having to brace against the stop, but at least she doesn't go sliding across the car on her face.

It really doesn't like the stairs, either.

Nami is annoyed with herself for not being more careful as she comes out of the station onto another busy sidewalk. The sky has lightened considerably from the drab grey it was earlier this morning, the sun still hidden away behind heavy clouds. She knows it isn't going to rain, but the chill is still hanging in the air and she zips up her jacket again as she crosses the street, trying not to favor her throbbing ankle too much. It's not until she hears a low whine behind her, after walking several blocks, that she realizes she's being followed.

"Man, you sure walk fast in those stupid shoes." She looks back, astonished to see Luffy directly behind her, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans and a disgruntled look on his face when he asks, "Where're you goin' in such a hurry?"

"None of your business," Nami says, voice high with indignity, _"Are you following me?"_

"Well, yeah - "

_"Why?"_

"I dunno."

Nami doesn't stop walking - in fact, she quickens her pace a bit, hand reaching into her bag as she glares over her shoulder. Luffy half-jogs to keep up with her. It's when she notices the sound of his feet scuffing the concrete and sees that he's wearing sandals.

"I have pepper spray," she says.

She doesn't know why she warns him.

For some reason he looks excited, "Is it any good?" and Nami smiles sweetly, "Would you like to try it?!"

It occurs to her, though, that he has no idea what pepper spray _is _- and she doesn't have the heart to mace someone that unbelievably stupid.

So she runs.

-x-

"What's in that huge bag, anyway?"

"If you're going to keep following me," Nami snaps, gripping the strap of her shoulder bag and refusing to turn and acknowledge him further, "Then stop asking questions!"

She hears a low whine, a murmured, "You sure are mean," but he doesn't ask anything else. Nami can't believe this. She's never met someone she couldn't outrun before - it definitely doesn't help that her ankle hurts more and more with every step, and she's very nearly limping, now - and without even thinking she shoots a glare over her shoulder to get another look at him. Luffy's lips are pursed, hat sitting crooked and hanging over his eyes. His head is turned to the side, staring into the windows of the shops they pass without any interest at all; his hands crammed into his pockets, shoulders relaxed, jacket flapping open over a real Doskoi shirt.

Nami knows it's not the knock-off brand - and it looks out of place on this gangly teenager, on top of jeans that the knees are all but torn out of.

She doesn't know what to think of this guy.

"Don't you have somewhere to _be?"_ she asks sharply, forgetting she was trying to ignore him.

Luffy looks are her, cramming his pinky into his left nostril.

"Not really."

Nami doesn't hide her disgust.

But this isn't exactly a nice part of town. She's not going to admit she doesn't really mind the extra company (the appearance of it, anyway), even if he does look like a buffoon. At the very least, she can use him as a deterrent. Nami keeps both hands on her bag, one hand on the strap and the other resting over the flap, and looks both ways before jogging across the street in the middle of the block. There's barely any traffic, but the one car on the road honks loudly as it comes up on them. Nami wisely ignores them, hopping up onto the sidewalk; Luffy, on the other hand, with no regard for their safety, sticks his tongue out at the passenger that leans out the window with a rude hand gesture.

_He's going to get us shot,_ Nami thinks, and quickens her pace.

At the corner, she stops in front of a small shop with heavy bars on all the windows, so abruptly that Luffy, who is only half a step in her wake, nearly falls over the top of her. Nami shoves him back at arm's length, holds a finger up to silence him when he opens his mouth to say something.

"Don't touch anything in here," she says. He crosses his arms, his tilting to one side, and Nami elaborates, "You can come inside with me on this one condition. If you're going to touch anything, you can just wait out here on the sidewalk until I'm finished."

She says this mostly to dissuade him from coming in, thinking that if he has to wait outside by himself long enough he'll get bored and wander off. It doesn't escape her that he isn't a dog. But she's met smarter dogs. Luffy lets out a long hum, clearly deciding.

"Fine," he says, and Nami almost smiles - she can't believe it worked - "I won't touch anything."

"Oh..." It's hard to hold onto her conviction. "Well...! Good!"

Put off, she adjusts the strap of her bag and hauls open the glass door (it's heavy with bars just like the windows are, stickers and old notices obscuring any view inside, a flashy OPEN sign hanging in the only clear corner of glass). A bells sounds from deep inside the store. Luffy drowns out the low noise with one of his own, hurrying quickly around Nami as she steps inside and putting his hands up over his eyes, like he's looking across a great distance and shading his eyes.

"Wow! Look at all this neat stuff!"

The store isn't very wide, but it goes on the entire depth of the building. There are shelves and glass cases lining both walls all the way to the back counter, racks hanging from the ceiling and more shelves laid out in neat rows in the middle of the floor. They're short enough to see over and crammed full of miscellaneous items - from the polished broad swords hanging on the wall to old television sets crowding up the center shelf, trading cards and fine jewelry sharing space in the locked cases.

And the first thing Luffy does is make a bee-line for the nearest shelf.

_"What did I just tell you?!"_ Nami hisses under her breath, and Luffy stops short, looking scolded.

Nami makes an aggravated noise at him as she storms to the counter at the back of the store, where the cash register is sitting unattended. She doesn't understand his enthusiasm at all - the pawn shop has it's treasures, to be sure, but almost everything on the floor is junk, plain and simple.

She swings her bag up onto the counter just as the proprietor comes in from the back room behind the counter. Nami catches a glimpse of the room beyond, a desk stacked high with papers - a velvet-lined box sitting open and thick gold coins glinting under the florescent lights before the door is pulled smartly closed. Buggy regards Luffy with suspicion when he spots him sulking around near the front of the shop, leaning closely over a case of trinkets with his hands crossed behind his back. Glancing back to be sure he isn't doing anything _stupid_, Nami can't decide whether he's actually looking at the wares or making faces at his reflection in the glass.

Apparently Buggy is of the same opinion.

He props an elbow on the counter as he leans against it, the other on his hip. Nami has never fathomed why the man favors face-paint, but he always has; it's green this time, his blue hair pulled back into a long ponytail that hangs over his left shoulder. He's put himself deftly between Nami and the cash register, looking unimpressed with her company (if the highly arched triangles above his eyes are any indication).

"Who's the brat with the straw-hat?"

"I don't know," Nami says ruefully, then smiles and pats her bag, "But I'm here for business."

That earns her a grin from the pawnbroker.

"Are you, now?" he asks, intrigued, "I'm always happy to do business with someone who has such a keen eye for treasure. What've you got for me this time?"

Nami unloads the contents of her bag, one item at a time. She has several watches, earings and necklaces, elaborate hair-pieces, an antique vase embosed with gold fillegry, a few documents, and a number of petty things that won't get her much - electronics she nicked from rude kids off the train. Buggy doesn't ask where she got anything, and Nami doesn't say. While she's bartering for a decent price, Luffy is nosing through the isles, being careful not to touch anything.

He finds lots of cool stuff.

There's a suit of brass armor standing in the furthest corner of the shop that he really wants to try on - he wails softly when he sees it, bolting across the shop and turning to the counter to see if Nami is looking, but she is, that mean glint in her eyes, and Luffy crosses his arms tightly, stamping his feet. He reluctantly leaves it alone, ducking down in another isle to get a better look at the stuff on the bottom shelves that are covered with dust and dirt. He hugs his knees, craning his head to one side and then the other.

It's there he finds something _really_ awesome.

Nami yelps at the loud roar that suddenly fills the ship.

Buggy almost drops the antique vase, his magnifying glass plicking sharply on the glass counter top.

Luffy surges to his feet from two isles over, a long, narrow box gripped in his hands, held high over his head, _"LOOK AT THIS!"_

_"What is it?"_ Nami asks angrily, hand clutching her chest.

Luffy shakes the box at her.

_"Coleoptera!"_

That is not the word she expects to hear from him - too many syllables, for one thing - Nami doesn't even know what it _means_ and turns, bewildered, to Buggy, who looks alarmed and annoyed by the noise. He sets the vase carefully aside, squinting at the box in Luffy's hands. Nami sees that it has a glass lid, a dark smudge through the middle where the dust has been cleared away. The teen comes right to them, nearly taking down a shelf in his haste when his foot catches on the corner of it.

He stumbles to the counter, Nami sliding out of his way, moving her empty bag aside so he has space on the counter to set the box. It's made of a dark wood, though it's hard to tell through the thick layer of dust; a foot long, little more than an inch thick, with a small metal clasp at the front. Nami leans against Luffy's shoulder to look inside, Luffy dancing from foot to foot as he rubs his hand over the glass again. His palm comes away dark brown.

Nami squeals and jerks away once she gets a good look.

Luffy is laughing, beside himself with joy.

"They're _bugs,"_ he says delightedly, grinning so hard his face must hurt, "I've never seen these kinds before!"

_"Luffy, that's disgusting...!"_ Nami says, shrinking back.

"Don't worry," he laughs, "They're dead bugs!" Like that makes it _any _better _at all_. Nami shudders, shaking her head, and Luffy leans eagerly over the box to look at Buggy, hugging it against his chest. "Hey, mister, can I have this!?"

But he's already broken the first unspoken rule of bartering, showing interest with that open, honest face of his. Nami sighs. She knows for a fact that this boy is broke. And Buggy does exactly what she expects him to - he takes the box right out of Luffy's hands.

"Of course you can't _have_ it," the pawnbroker says, like he can't believe his ears, "This is a business, not a charity!" The narrow case disappears behind the counter, on the shelf below the register, and Luffy all but sprawls out across the top of the glass, his mouth hanging open in disappointment. Buggy blocks his view of it, hip leaned against the counter, arms crossed and grinning. "But if you're willing to make me a decent offer, I might be willing to part with it."

He says this, but he can probably tell just by looking at him that Luffy doesn't have anything at all to offer; Buggy can smell a penniless bum a mile away, and this kid reeks of it. The way Luffy's face sags almost makes Nami feel bad. He settles into a deep frown, eyebrows knotting together.

"I don't have any money."

_Too honest,_ Nami thinks, rubbing her forehead.

She doesn't jump in to make an offer for him, though, despite the thick wad of cash sitting in her pocket when they finally leave the shop. Luffy made a pretty convincing argument to Buggy, pointing out that the box probably hadn't been touched in years, but someone who's been in the business as long as Buggy isn't going to be persuaded by something so trivial. Luffy is actually pouting, scuffing his feet on the sidewalk, a hand rubbing absently at his stomach, tugging at his shirt.

Nami walks with him in silence. She doesn't remember she was trying to get rid of him, that she still has errands to run and she would really prefer not to be followed, until Luffy pipes up, voice an almost whine, "I'm starving." His stomach chooses that moment to rumble in agreement.

Amused, Nami arches an eyebrow.

"I don't think you're going to be able to find any place to eat around here if you don't have any money," she points out, stopping at the corner.

The traffic has picked up considerably. Luffy stands at the crosswalk with her, waiting for the light to turn and let them cross the busy street, and he twists to take in their surroundings, the signs hanging over the streets and the billboards on the rooftops. Unexpectedly, he grabs Nami by the arm. He pulls her away from the corner, down the street, and Nami tries to dig her heels in (_"Hey, just what d'you think you're doing?!"_), but pain shoots through her ankle, sending her stumbling after Luffy.

He's grinning when he turns to her, holding tight to her forearm so she doesn't fall.

He stops pulling so hard, slows down his pace.

"I know a place we can eat~"

-x-

(A/n) Written for LuffyxNami Week, 2014! Day 3's prompts was AU - so this is where I went. And I don't know how to shut up (wow, clearly), so we'll just have to cross our fingers and see if I can finish it before the week lets out! I wanted to parallel the manga as much as possible, but still leave myself enough free space to do the fun stuff that what I wanted. I think I managed that pretty well, considering I binge wrote this in two days. /collapses

I will do my utmost to get chapter two up tomorrow! Or, more realistically, the day after.

Reviews are appreciated!

-Motcn


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